UN Weather Agency Warns El Nino Could Be Strongest Ever, Persisting Into Early 2027

UN warns of extreme El Niño

The United Nations weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization, warned on Thursday that El Nino is set to intensify to exceptional levels in the coming months and persist into early 2027, with forecasts showing a nearly 100 percent likelihood that it will continue through February. WMO chief Celeste Saulo told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, “If this trajectory continues, it may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began – so literally off the charts we have used for the past four decades,” as the agency said the event is classified as “very strong” on its scale of weak, moderate, strong or very strong. The WMO said El Nino will peak towards the end of this year, but its knock-on impacts for the climate will continue well into 2027, because heat in the oceans releases more slowly into the atmosphere.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “El Nino is being supersized before our eyes,” framing the warning as a race between rising risks and climate action. The WMO also said it was stepping up preparedness and early warning efforts, urging disaster management authorities and climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, healthcare, energy and water to prepare.

Reporting for this sectionAl Jazeera

Certainty and competing frames

The WMO said its forecasts show “a near 100% likelihood that El Niño would persist through February 2027,” and Reuters described the update as the first time the agency had expressed such a degree of certainty.

Reuters quoted WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo saying, “If this trajectory continues, it may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began. So literally off the charts,” while CBC similarly reported that it was the first time the WMO had expressed such a degree of certainty.

Antonio Guterres used the same language across outlets, telling Reuters, “El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt,” and CBC repeated his warning that “The planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up.”

The WMO’s update also described El Nino as a periodic warming of sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific caused by weakening trade winds, and it said it occurs naturally every two to seven years and tends to last up to 12 months.

In addition to the global framing, the WMO’s warnings were tied to specific seasonal outlooks, including September-November forecasts indicating increased likelihood of above-normal temperatures “across almost all land areas.”

Reporting for this sectionReutersCBC

What’s at stake through 2027

The WMO warned that El Nino’s intensification would raise risks of floods, drought and extreme heat, and it said the impacts could multiply and cascade as El Nino intensifies. Daily Sabah reported the WMO expected El Nino to strengthen to “very strong” levels and persist through February, while also quoting the UN chief’s warning that the world was entering the “danger zone of extreme weather.” The WMO said the event is “not caused by climate change,” but it warned that it can exacerbate the heat of a planet already warming from burning fossil fuels while amplifying weather extremes.

In its update, the WMO said the index measuring sea surface temperature anomalies strengthened from an average 1.5C (2.7F) above normal between May and July, with weekly values between late July and mid-August ranging from 2.2C to 2.6C (4F to 4.7F) above average. The WMO also linked the forecast to concrete preparedness needs, with Saulo telling reporters in Geneva that there was “no time to lose” in getting ready and putting disaster management authorities and climate-sensitive sectors on notice.

Reporting for this sectionDaily SabahAl Jazeera